Inside the Empire corporate offices

This is too funny. The call from Darth Vader to the Emporer after the first Death Star blew up.

February 11, 2006 --- The day John switched to a Mac.

For anyone who hasn’t heard, I made the switch to a Mac a few weeks back. Funny, I only have one sentence in and I know that most everyone who knows me is saying, “wha..????” Well, it has been something I have thought about doing for some time. Actually, back in college, I almost switched to one of the original PowerPC Powerbooks. What stopped me though, was the fact that there were too many things I did in Windows and the lack of a good PC emulator for the Mac. When my cousin, Bob picked up an iMac in November, that was when I really started thinking about switching again.

You see, over the past few years, with the birth of Emma and TJ, photo and video editing is becoming more near and dear to my heart, and though I have had some success doing these things on the PC, almost no one would argue that the Mac is the better way to go by far. I wasn’t satisfied with editing videos on the PC. Everything seemed clunky and what I thought should be the easiest things to do, were often the most tedious. Every time I would get frustrated, I wished I had a Mac to work with. It was always a dream that quickly disappeared into the jumbled mess inside my head, until that day in November, when Bob called and said he ordered an iMac. Now, my mind recalled that dream I have had for the past 10 years, only this time, it wasn’t going away.

Over the next couple of months, I spoke to Bob frequently and asked him how he liked the switch. Now, my dream could have been quickly pushed deep back in to my head if Bob’s experience was bad, but it wasn’t. He said that it was the best computing move that he has ever made. He loved it and would never go back. I still had the reservations that I had had back in college though. Things like, how am I going to play games, can I connect a Mac to Active Directory to access shared data on our home network kept popping in to my mind.

Don’t worry about that last sentence, I am not going to get all technical now. You can keep reading.

For another month, I went over things in my head on the subject of switching to a Mac. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I could get a MacMini and run both my PC and Mac simultaneously. That was it. I talked to Melinda about it and I will spare you all the details of the conversation. Suffice it to say that she thought I was crazy, but since I had a birthday coming up, she decided that I could have a Mac for my birthday. Just like that, I was off to CompUSA.

Well, I shall skip the whole purchasing experience in the interest of time, but I reserve the right to tell that story at some point. Anyway, here I am, writing this with my Mac. I have not really edited much video yet, but I have made a few slide shows that I have burned to DVD and sent to my mom. You can also check out TJ’s crawling video. That link is right below this blog entry. Am I happy with my Mac, you ask? To that I answer, yes, extremely happy! It is the best computer I have ever owned. I love the experience so much that I have already talked a coworker into switching. By the way, she loves it too. I will say this though, I still have my PC up and running beside me. I can’t do everything on my Mac just yet, but that day is coming.

Oh yeah, one last thing. My wife did get something out of this whole deal. She is covered for my birthday, Valentines Day and Father’s day. Also, I am not allowed to have any tech things for a while (1 year) and I owe her the next time there is something she wants. You know, the "item to be named later. She has already given me a few hints. Though not getting any new technology for a year will be tough, this was a fair trade.

TJ Has his very own video!

Look! It is what you've all been waiting for, TJ's video.

Click Here For the TJ Video

(Just right-click and select Save Target As....)

Check out this crazy Ebay auction!!!

Don't ever be a cheater, that is all I have to say.
Check it out: Ultimate Mystery box auction!

Track you FedEx, UPS, USPS package routes via Google Maps!

PackageMapper.com is a Google Maps based tool showing your FedEx, UPS, or USPS package routes.

Check it out. A new way to be frustrated about where your package is and why it isn't at your doorstep! Seriously though, I think it is kind of cool. Check it out.

read more digg story

For all you surfers of the net or iPod users...

If you are looking for a new way to keep up on technology or to just read some humorous stories, check out Digg.com. The site ranks news stories by how many Diggs they have. A digg is a view, so the more diggs, the more popular a story is. Some of the topics you can read about on Digg.com are technology, music, movies, gaming, deals and much more.

If you have an iPod, they also do a Podcast called Diggnation. You can check out past episodes at the Diggnation website. If you want to download the Podcast to your iPod, they are listed in the iTunes Podcast directory. For people who have a Video iPod, you can also download the video Podcast of their show.

I would rate the show PG, so parental guidance is recommended.

By the way, for those of you who are fans of the old TechTv and of the Screensavers, the hosts of Diggnation are Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. My wife would normally be bored to tears by a show all about technology, but with Kevin and Alex hosting, she laughed until she was in tears. Check it out.